travel

After two and a half days in Québec City, we drove up the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, stopping in Baie St. Paul (a wonderful artistic community) and then reaching Baie Ste. Catherine where the St. Lawrence meets the Saguenay River. The whole drive had spectacular views of the river, really one of the most beautiful drives in Canada, but Pointe Noire was breathtaking. I sat on a picnic table just before we boarded the ferry and sketched the few valiant trees on the hill. The background music of the ferries’ horns and the sight of the soaring birds is still in my mind as I looks at this sketch.

A short ferry ride from Baie Ste. Catherine is Tadoussac, a small town with a great restaurant, La Bohème, which is located in an old general store from 1892. We spent a couple of days here and ate at La Bohème 3 times! I did a bit of sketching in this picturesque place including the red and turquoise church on the shore of the river, reported to be the oldest wooden church in North America. What sketcher could resist those colours! I had my stool with me, so sat right out in front to sketch and paint. The church was visited by lots of people as it was Sunday morning, so I had many comments on my work. The town has a lovely wooden boardwalk with a gazebo at the end where I retreated to finish the sketch.

Hello again! I am finally back here. We have been travelling for the last couple of weeks in Québec. I wanted to sketch everyday of the trip and to try to find comfort with my still developing skill and style. I pretty well kept to it, with some days completing two or three. Our first two days were in le Vieux-Québec, a totally perfect place to sketch. We stayed within the city walls and wandered around amid the old beauty. I sat on patios, benches and walls and sketched.

My rule was to complete the sketch, including watercolour, in situ, no matter how wonky or bad it seemed. And as I look at these, even though I cringe a bit (look at those weird people in the last drawing!), I can remember so much about the time I was sketching, the weather, the conversation, the taste of the latte. And I kept sketching all the way up the St. Lawrence to Tadoussac and Lac St. Jean, so in the coming days I’ll post some more. Meantime, it’s nice to be back here.

Today we took a one-hour train ride into the mountains to the resort town of Arosa.  Such stunning views of Alpine living on the way and in the town. And the yarn bombers have visited Arosa too! We loved the knitted geometric on the bench.  To see more pictures of our trip check out Bev’s website, www.greatescapeswithbev.ca

We are spending three days in the lovely old city of Chur, Switzerland, a tiny gem nestled among the Aps. (Heidi’s mountain is one of them.) It has been perfect sketching weather and yesterday, ignoring jet lag, my friend MB and I sat in Fontana Park and sketched. Today we spent time sketching again, this time in a cafe with two other sketchers on the trip. We also found  some marvellous rugs from India–very inspiring for you rug hookers.  We gulped at the $10 000 Swiss Franc price tag!

I spent two sunny days in Seattle with daffodils and cherry trees before flying back to the snow and below zero temperatures of Ontario. Seattle is a great city, one I have been wanting to visit for a long time and one I will return to. Of course I had to make the requisite coffee visits and do some sketching. In Le Panier I sat with a great Montreal couple who were very interested in my Lamy Joy pen, so I passed on the Goulet connection, simple the best place to buy fountain pens.  

I spent Tuesday at the Seattle Museum of Art and the Miro exhibit (see sketches and review here from Gabriel Campanario) and then a trip on the monorail and lunch at the Chihuly gardens. It was too cool to sit outside to sketch the wild glass sculptures, but I did get a quick sketch of the restaurant window before the delicious crab cakes arrived. 

I sketched much of the time I was in Amsterdam. Sketching is the perfect travel companion. It allows you to sit alone in cafés or on benches and not appear lonely or lost. It is a great conversation opener so you end up talking to all kinds of people, mostly real inhabitants of the city, not tourists, and this always provides insights. But most importantly, sketching is a way of enhanced seeing, a way of really ‘taking it in’. As I’ve said before, for me it isn’t the quality of the sketches, although I’m always working to  improve, but the process of being there and absorbing through my eyes and my pen and paints.

The weather was good while I was there, and by the last of the four days, I was able to sit outside to sketch. But the cafés and tea shops are perched right on the canals, so there is always a good view from a window seat. Here are a few of the sketches. The final one is of a small delft house, a gift from KLM. You can read the text about this–an unceremonious dumping followed by a bumping, 2 hours later,  to business class.

BTW I was reading The Goldfinch the whole time I was there. This novel which has just been nominated for the Bailey Women’s Prize, (formerly the Orange Prize) begins and ends in Amsterdam in a hotel on the Herengracht. It is a story of deep and unforgettable love and loss–and the essential place of art in our world. The painting of the title is by a 17thC Dutch artist.  The book was a bit over the top in repetitive detail, especially about endless drug-consumption and the Russian underworld, but still was a  perfect read for my favourite city.

I spent day two of the USK Montreal learning from Shari Blaukopf, beginning at the bottom of Place Jacques Cartier looking toward Nelson’s column. Below are the stages of Shari’s excellent demo from value sketch to the final product.

In the afternoon we went to a quiet spot with a great view of the 1847 Marché Bonsecours. The skies were changing swiftly, there was lots of wind and a little rain. So much wind, in fact, that my hat blew away. But as I said, this workshop has it ALL. On Sunday Shari arrived with a hat for me! Below is my sketch and two others I managed to photograph before the rain drops. The final picture is from Sunday in Carré St. Louis with me sporting my new hat.

This was a top-of-the -line workshop. Marc and Shari had done intense preparation both in setting up the sights and in preparing the demos. They anticipated all our needs, and best of all, made it such a great pleasure to learn. A big thanks to both!

Wendie recently did a post on handmade gifts. I think they are the best, and you just hope that the recipient senses the love and care that went into the gift, all the planning and then the hours completing the project. Well no doubts here. My great friend gave me this sketch recently–depicting a moment of our trip to Berlin and Paris. We had the best time, sketching our way along, absorbing that world in a way you can never do with just a camera. So this gift is kind of a loop back, a sketch from a photo of me taking a photo. But at the same time it captures the essence of our friendship and I treasure it.